Children's Pill School
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Maximising access to medicines for children: Setting up “Pill School" within the NHS to train and support young patients to take tablets and capsules
IRAS ID
220065
Contact name
Stephen Tomlin
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 30 days
Research summary
Children are most often given oral liquid medicines. There is evidence to show that children are capable of swallowing tablets and capsules, particularly if they are taught how to do it from a young age. Liquid medicines are not without their problems: short expiry, unpleasant taste, measuring the right volume of the medicine, inconvenient to store and carry, and cost (e.g. warfarin liquid bottle cost £100, 28 tablets below £2). Using a tablet or capsule can reduce these disadvantages.
We want to develop a pill swallowing training sessions (called Pill School) within an NHS hospital to train children how to swallow tablet/capsule. Also, we want to test and evaluate the Pill School to; find out how many children at the study site can, after training, be swapped from liquid medicines to tablets/capsules; and what children and their parent/carer as well as healthcare professionals, involved in the project, think about the proposed Pill School.This project will be conducted in a children’s hospital in England as follows:
1.Develop the intervention of swallowing training sessions (called Pill School) programme, prepare and train Pill School teachers who will teach and train children swallowing techniques.
2.Introduce swallowing training sessions to children (aged 3-18 years) and their parents/carers, to enable them to make the switch from liquids to tablets/capsules safely. Thirty children will be entered into the study while they are in the hospital.
3.Ask parents/carers and their children (if old enough and willing to participate/answer questions), after they go home, what they think about Pill School using a telephone interview.
4.Ask healthcare professionals involved in the feasibility project (Pill School teachers, doctors, nurses) about their experience and views regarding the proposed intervention.Throughout the project, we will work with Parent and Young Persons’ Advisory Groups to guide us and help tell others what we find. We believe that the impact of this project will have immediate benefits to children and their parents/carers and will have a national impact on the NHS within a short time-frame.
We will use the findings of this project to conduct further research to see if Pill School can be integrated, run successfully and sustained across the NHS and we will see if it saves the NHS money.REC name
South Central - Hampshire B Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/SC/0285
Date of REC Opinion
19 Jul 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion